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The Death of Caesar

Jean-Léon Gérôme · 1867

An 1867 painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme showing the empty Senate chamber moments after Caesar's assassination.

This painting imagines the scene just after Caesar's assassination, a pivotal moment in his life and death.

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Painting of a marble-columned Roman interior with a mosaic floor. Men in white togas, some raising daggers, stand in a group in the center, while a body in white lies bloodied in the lower left foreground. A statue stands at left and rows of wooden benches line the right.
Jean-Léon Gérôme, The Death of Caesar, 1867. Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

About this source

What it is

The Death of Caesar is an 1867 painting by the French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme, now held at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. It shows the moment just after Julius Caesar's assassination on the Ides of March, 44 BC, as the conspirators walk away from his body in the Theatre of Pompey.

Why it matters

Rather than showing the stabbing itself, Gérôme depicted its aftermath, with the Senate hall emptying and Caesar's body left behind. His smooth, realistic technique made the scene feel almost like a photograph, showing how nineteenth-century artists imagined ancient history with striking, dramatic realism.

Look closer

  • Why might Gérôme have chosen to paint the moment after the murder rather than the murder itself?
  • What does the empty hall and departing conspirators suggest about their state of mind?
  • How does this painted scene compare with written ancient accounts of the assassination?

This painting is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Julius Caesar on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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